Okay, now this is just odd.

As I was posting on these very forums, I noticed that a fly was buzzing around. I got up to
swat it, and after many failed attempts, the towel I had been swinging hit the fly so hard while it was in mid air (if it had been on asurface it would have just gone splt) that all of its body parts went flying off into different directions. Odd? No. Funny? Yes. But thats not the weird part. The body of the fly had landed on my desk, and I examined it for a second, and noticed there was a large worm inside it! Almost it's entire body was filled with this weird little grub looking creature that was squiggling around inside the dead body
of the fly. It wasen't a tinnnnyyy little parasite, no. This thing was BIG. I don't even see how the body had room for the organs and still hold the thing in it. I thought maybe it was in some odd way, the organs of the fly, that were still alive and wiggling around. But no, after about 30s, it crawled out of the body and started moving around my desk, leaving a little slime trail behind it. Unfortunately, I flushed this gross little thing down the toilet before I had thought to take a picture of it, but I would really like some insight on to WTF that thing was. Thanks.

Your imagination!!!!!!!!....only joking. Ha ha......

Could it be something to do with the fky starting its short life as a maggot....maybe it had only JUST turned into a fly (from being a maggot).... but due to what just happened...crash landing on your desj unexpectedly.......the whole transformation from maggot to fly thingy hadnt yet completed..............

Uh... maybe the fly was pregnant and that was a maggot baby?

That's the only thing that came to mind.

Sounds like something out of a weird sci-fi alien movie!

Ehm, well thanks. But to be honest I doubt it was either of those.

1: Fly's dont give birth that way (You were probably joking, but just to be sure...)
2: Fly's aren't like Sachaedas (Suh kay duhs, or however you spell it), they don't have 'shells'. They are either a fly or a maggot, nothing in between X). If its flying, its a full grown fly.

Its very strange though. I would like to know how (what I'm guessing is) a 'parasite worm'
got into the stomache of a fly. I'm thinking that perhaps it was the larvae of one of those parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside insects? That seems the most likely idea.

It could be two things...

It could have been its intestines or viens still pulsing or, a parrasite as you say which are becoming more frequent in insects...

emuse.ebaumsworld.com...

www.filecabi.net...


It is creepy to think if this could eventualy attack us

Mabey it was a tiny 'Gwa-oold' symbiote. like in the T.V. show Stargate.

No..just kidding with you. lolol

Seriously, from your description, it sounded pretty gross and un-nerving.

I wonder if there was some sort of parasitic infestation in the fly? But then again, from my understanding, as a rule of thumb, NO parasite can be bigger than the host? (Tapeworms can get pretty big though)

Well it wasen't bigger persay, it was just very large in proportion to the fly itself. If the fly's size is a 10 out of 10, the thing in it was a 6.5 out of 10. Odd stuff...

I've heard of a species of wasp that lays its eggs in centipedes... maybe it was something like that?

Originally posted by TheDuckster
Mabey it was a tiny 'Gwa-oold' symbiote. like in the T.V. show Stargate.

It's Goa'ould actually

Originally posted by FudgeStix
I've heard of a species of wasp that lays its eggs in centipedes... maybe it was something like that?

It's Goa'ould actually

Yes, I mentioned that as well. But thinking about it, flys are so small, not only would the stinger kill them, but they would be far too fast to let themselves be stuck with one in the first place.

Originally posted by Gooey

Originally posted by FudgeStix
I've heard of a species of wasp that lays its eggs in centipedes... maybe it was something like that?

It's Goa'ould actually

Yes, I mentioned that as well. But thinking about it, flys are so small, not only would the stinger kill them, but they would be far too fast to let themselves be stuck with one in the first place.

Maybey it was really tiny at first and grew in the body, or somehow was already inside at the flys birth, I think kittens can have worms before they are even born.

Yes, but thats not the whole question. I'd like to know -WTF- it is and why its in there to begin with.

there are some insect species, don't recall the names, that lay their eggs in the heads of other insect species. perhaps this is what you saw. if i were you i'd do some searching on insects and see what you find

Maybe the type of fly it was will be important to finding out, do you know what kind of fly it was?

Seems like the fly maybe should have been dead with something that big inside it.

Can a parasite control the action of its' host?


Troy

Interesting....My brother (Who graduated suma cum laudae with a degree in biology) just informed me that there are types of parasitic 'worms' that can control the actions of their hosts, as stated. The fly was a horse fly, if I'm not mistaken. It's possible it got in there from something the fly ate, then started to control it? Unlikely, but at this point I'm open to all options, and it sounds like my best bet.

Plenty of insects use other insects as hosts. Certain wasps lay things inside catapillars which eventually eat them inside out. There is a natural predator for aphids which injects them with it's larvae which eventualy burst from them like something out of the alien movies.

I wouldn't be concerned about it, actually i'd have been interested to see it.

Gooey, you use towels to kill flies as well?! They are the best thing, apart from when you cover the fly with a curtian against a window, then when it can't go anywhere, you crush it.

Good times.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
Gooey, you use towels to kill flies as well?! They are the best thing, apart from when you cover the fly with a curtian against a window, then when it can't go anywhere, you crush it.

Good times.

True that.

Maybe the fly was dead before you killed it and being controlled via the parasite the entire time.

When you think about it, the size of the parasite is what probably caused the fly to explode in mid air.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
Gooey, you use towels to kill flies as well?! They are the best thing, apart from when you cover the fly with a curtian against a window, then when it can't go anywhere, you crush it.

Good times.

haha, is it sick I used to have fun doing that when I was a kid?

I found this article that you might find intresting parasites used for fly control